What's in your CDP tonight? the minority report

ghosthouse...

Spot-on appraisal of Elton John's earlier and by any measure best output. Only album left out could be "11/17/70", an excellent live in studio recording that I had written a review for my 8th grade English class. (Great record, and one gawd-awful attempt at a record review.)

Personally, I stopped at Madman. After that...well,  I lost interest altogether as his stardom exploded. 

ghosthouse...

Actually my review, or at least my attempt at a review, was for 11/17/70 not Madman Across The Water. Fortunately I have long since lost that first attempt at becoming a writer, let alone a critic.  I remember vaguely re-reading it during my high school years and feeling my skin crawl in repulsion. It was THAT awful. 

I just turned 60 late last year. Older and wiser now than ever before, I am thankful that I at least had the sense to pursue other endeavors in which I was better equipped to succeed at. 
(None of which were obvious at the time.)

Another Ralph J. Gleason I would not become!  

Staying on point...

I listen more often digitally than I do analogue simply because digital, server/player/streaming, offers an ease of use that vinyl does not.  While the tangible appreciation of vinyl playback still owns a place in my heart, either format serves me well enough to a point wherein disparaging one in favor of the other is without merit. 

I began with vinyl and it never left my setup. Even as I gravitated toward the compact disc, essentially mirroring my vinyl catalogue in a hasty embrace of the "new" format, I never had the mind, nor the ears, to find either so utterly superior to the other that one would suffer divorce from my life. 

The quality of playback through either source is woefully dependent on the quality of one's equipment - with vinyl being particularly precious regarding the chain.  It was said here earlier that it should be "all about the music", so I recently moved from a fairly admirable separates setup to one with an integrated amp, turntable, and player/server. Voila!  Easy peasey, and I've since stopped wringing my hands over the loss or gain of a few hertz here or there - if I ever could discern it audibly. 

At my gf's house we listen through a Pioneer SX-850 receiver, Pro-Ject cheap-seats turntable, and/or a Marantz CD player through Meadowlark Kestrel speakers. We've weaved our way through her truly awful collection of disco compilation lp's keeping only original artist recordings.  Fortunately we're down to about fifteen such examples.  We have done the same to her equally awful, yet far more extensive CD library of disco compilations as well.  As a means of rewarding her painful decisions resulting in a diminished library, I've been purchasing heavy-gram vinyl copies of her other favorites, Fleetwood Mac, Boston, Earth Wind And Fire.  She's also left my house with more than a few Lyle Lovetts, Lucinda Williams, Genesis, and Dave Grusin lp's. 

Spinning now on my cdp?  "Don't Tell A Soul" - The Replacements. I'm awaiting the arrival of Son Volt's new release for the turntable. 

Wow...Lee Michaels. 

I think I might still have "Barrel" on vinyl somewhere. I know I've burned it into the Sony Hap but haven't listened in a while. 

To say that yesterday was a bad news day is an understatement. 

At virtually every get together I've attended over the years somewhere, somehow, Tom Petty makes it onto the playlist at everybody's house. Simply by playing TP & The Heartbreakers in my home turned two nieces and a nephew onto his music, all of whom are at least 30 years younger than myself.  One is 50 years younger. 

When I went to put something on last night I was surprised to see how many of his records I own. Pretty much everything he was involved with over the decades. The "T" section in my collection requires a lot of flipping through his stuff to get to the next artist. 

Farewell to a great tunesmith. R. I. P. 

Evolve - Ani DiFranco

Definitely Wayne Shorter. 

Relish - Joan Osborne.